For the first time in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Catalonia, over 1 000 eGovernment services for both citizens and companies can be found on a single website; the Virtual Procedures Office (VPO).

The VPO was launched by the Government of Catalonia on 11 January 2010. Among the 1 000 procedures available through the virtual office, 160 can be entirely carried out online. This number is planned to increase in the future.

Examples of the online services available include applications for large family certificates, reductions in the water tax or certificates of habitability, as well as enrolment for certain education exams in order to obtain the corresponding degree. As far as businesses are concerned, entrepreneurs can perform, among other operations, the preliminary notification of construction works, the notification of work related accidents and subscriptions to the new public administration project tenders.  

According to the Government of Catalonia, the VPO has the following advantages: 

1. Increased accessibility: citizens can locate more easily the online services provided by the Government of Catalonia, doing away with the need to visit various websites and platforms. 
2. Interconnected Public Administration: the portal contains links to local and central public services by means of joint searches in the Catalonian Open Administration (AOC - 'Administración abierta de Cataluña' in Spanish) website and the national eGoverment portal '060.es' respectively. Therefore, citizens can access any service without needing to know which Public Administration is responsible. It is worth noting however that only the procedures managed by the Government of Catalonia can be performed through the portal; each administration acts within the framework of its own competences but works as part of a network in order to facilitate procedures for citizens. In this light, the Government of Catalonia encourages the interconnection between municipal phone number 010 and 012; a coordination action that has already been introduced in Gerona and that is being tested in Barcelona and Terrassa. 
3. Better efficiency: The availability of a given procedure online enables the elimination of all unnecessary steps for the citizens (e.g. delivering certain documents) and reduces the execution time. 
4. Increased transparency and personalisation: Another new feature of the portal is the 'personal procedure file' on which citizens can find the details of all the procedures they are carrying out and the stage of evolution of these procedures. For the time being this service is available for approximately 140 procedures.

The VPO was launched in an aim to simplify and render administrative procedures more user-friendly, so as to make Catalan companies more competitive, as intended in the 2008-2011 Strategic Agreement for internationalisation, work quality and the competitiveness of the Catalan Economy.

 

Further information: 

• Original new article - Government of Catalonia
• Virtual Procedures Office of Catalonia
• Catalonian Open Administration website (in Catalan)
• Central eGovernment portal '060.es'